{"id":18136,"date":"2019-02-21T18:40:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T10:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/japans-hayabusa-2-team-says-spacecraft-touches-down-on-asteroid-to-grab-sample\/"},"modified":"2019-02-21T18:40:01","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T10:40:01","slug":"japans-hayabusa-2-team-says-spacecraft-touches-down-on-asteroid-to-grab-sample","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/japans-hayabusa-2-team-says-spacecraft-touches-down-on-asteroid-to-grab-sample\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 team says spacecraft touches down on asteroid to grab sample"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hayabusa
An image captured just after the Hayabusa 2\u2019s touchdown on asteroid Ryugu shows the H-shaped shadow of the spacecraft and its solar panels. The dark splotch represents material disturbed by the sample collection operation. (JAXA Photo via Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft successfully touched down today on asteroid Ryugu, more than 200 million miles from Earth, during an operation aimed at blasting away and collecting a sample from the space rock.<\/p>\n

The 18-foot-wide spacecraft was programmed to extend a yard-long tube to touch the surface, shoot a bullet made of tantalum into the asteroid and collect the bits of rock and dust thrown up by the impact.<\/p>\n

In a series of tweets, the mission management team said telemetry confirmed that the bullet was fired and that the spacecraft was heading back to its stationkeeping position, 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) above the asteroid.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on this, we determined touchdown was successful!\u201d the Hayabusa 2 team tweeted. \u201cA detailed analysis will now be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

An image captured by the probe just after sample collection shows a closeup view of the asteroid\u2019s surface, including the H-shaped shadow of Hayabusa 2 and its solar panels. Dark markings at the center of the image represent material that was disturbed during the sample collection operation, and there appear to be flecks of dust on the camera lens.<\/p>\n

Hayabusa 2 follows up on Japan\u2019s first Hayabusa mission, which brought back samples from a smaller asteroid in 2010. This latest spacecraft arrived at Ryugu this summer and dropped off two mini-rovers as well as a European-built lander for earlier scientific studies.<\/p>\n

Bringing back samples of the asteroid, which is thought to contain water and other chemical building blocks of the early solar system, is the main goal of the Hayabusa 2 mission. The spacecraft is designed to make as many as three sample collection attempts.<\/p>\n

Late this year, Hayabusa 2 is scheduled to begin the return journey from Ryugu, which is named after a dragon\u2019s undersea palace in Japanese folk tales. The spacecraft is due to drop off its samples by the end of 2020. Only then will scientists know exactly what they\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

\"Hayabusa
The shadow cast by the Hayabusa 2 probe and its solar panels makes an \u201cH\u201d shape on the surface of asteroid Ryugu during the buildup to a sample collection attempt. (JAXA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Update for 8:30 a.m. PT Feb. 22:<\/strong> We\u2019ve added the closeup image that was captured shortly after Hayabusa 2 began retreating from the asteroid. Hat tip to Daniel Fischer, Igor Smolic, Shinsuke Abe and the Planetary Society\u2019s Jason Davis for posting the picture on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An image captured just after the Hayabusa 2\u2019s touchdown on asteroid Ryugu shows the H-shaped shadow of the spacecraft and its solar panels. The dark splotch represents material disturbed by the sample collection operation. (JAXA Photo via Twitter) Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft successfully touched down today on asteroid Ryugu, more than 200 million miles from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4365,1519,1965,377,4842,2168],"class_list":["post-18136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroid","tag-asteroids","tag-hayabusa-2","tag-japan","tag-japan-aerospace-exploration-agency","tag-ryugu"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}